Diluting tapwater with distilled water

This is a discussion on Diluting tapwater with distilled water within the Beginner Freshwater Aquarium forums, part of the Freshwater Fish and Aquariums category; -->
Byron brings up a good point. what is the pH of your tap water compared to the pH of the distilled. usually the pH ...

Byron brings up a good point. what is the pH of your tap water compared to the pH of the distilled. usually the pH is related to the hardness, so i'm going to guess you are trying to lower both. pH does not change as consistently as hardness, so smaller additions of distilled water might be helpful. test your pH regularly for a while, since by adding the distilled water you are limiting your water's buffering ability and pH can become unstable, which would be very bad for your fish.

Byron brings up a good point. what is the pH of your tap water compared to the pH of the distilled. usually the pH is related to the hardness, so i'm going to guess you are trying to lower both. pH does not change as consistently as hardness, so smaller additions of distilled water might be helpful. test your pH regularly for a while, since by adding the distilled water you are limiting your water's buffering ability and pH can become unstable, which would be very bad for your fish.

The tapwater pH is 8.3 and hardness is 300 ppm.

I'll keep an eye on the pH & hardness as you & Byron have suggested.

I think I'm going to add the following mix when I do water changes. The tap water is 300ppm and since I have two 5 gallon pails, I'll dilute 3.5 gallons distilled water with 1.5 gallons tap water (in each bucket). This should give a hardness of 90 ppm (eventually). Hopefully the pH will not swing too wildly. Once the hardness and pH seems stable, I see if I want to shoot for 75 ppm hardness.